Best Contemporary Dance Company Phoenix 2010 - Scorpius Dance Theatre

Most contemporary dance companies are either boring to watch or so bizarre that you practically need subtitles to interpret a performance. That's why we love Scorpius Dance Theatre, a local troupe known for mixing graceful moves and humorous interludes in a way that makes dance accessible to the average Joe. The company was founded by choreographer Lisa Starry in 1999 and has won numerous awards including a few of our "Best Ofs." We won't pretend that Starry's sexy A Vampire Tale has nothing to do with Scorpius winning in this category, but it's certainly not the only reason we noticed them. This annual Halloween production brought the sex appeal back into modern dance, an ideal that continued this season in Catwalk. The fashion-themed show highlighted one major difference between Scorpius and the other modern dance troupes we've seen: Few dancers in this company look like Kate Moss. Starry breaks with longstanding tradition by hiring the best talent, regardless of whether a dancer is bald and broad or short and curvaceous.